1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to the field of analyzing the reflective quality of surfaces and more specifically to the area of apparatus and method used to inspect and determine the quality of surfaces.
2. Background Information
In the automotive and appliance industry where painted surfaces of products need to be inspected, the conventional method used is to pass the product through an area of high intensity light emitted from banks of elongated fluorescent tubes. Human inspectors visually scan the product and look for appearance attributes and flaws such as roughness, gloss, orange peel, waviness, dents and others that contribute to a degraded measure of quality in surface appearance. The inspectors are then able to provide a relative rating of the overall surface quality of each inspected product, based upon their subjective evaluation. While the aforementioned subjective technique may be used by an experienced inspector with some measure of reliability and consistency, it is subject to wide variations between different inspectors, and does not lend itself to high speed applications. Automation techniques are desired to Provide a quantitative, rapid and more consistent measure of quality. The high speed and distinctive repeatability are desired to provide a basis for statistical analysis and correction of quality degradation.